On this latter topic, the interviewer presses John on whether he believes LGBT priests should be able to get married. What results is a fantastic little tangent:

Of course [they should]. And I don't see why Catholic priests have to be celibate. It's crazy. These are old and stupid things. And the church hierarchy might be, you know, 'up-in-arms' about it, the traditionalists. [But] the times have changed. We live in a different time. If Jesus Christ were alive today... I cannot see him as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was saying 'this cannot happen.' He was all above love and compassion, and forgiveness, and trying to bring people together. And that's what the church should be about.

Comments

It's useless to speculate what Jesus would say if he were alive today because in today's world he couldn't exist in the same form. He was very much a product of his time. The reason he seems so "timeless" is that for two thousand years Christians have projected their own world view onto HIM, not the other way around.

It always amazes me how Judeo-Christians, both liberal and conservative, claim to derive their morality from the Bible, but in reality they read the Bible with their own morality firmly established, and have to make a concerted effort to cram whatever they have already decided about morality into the very narrow view espoused by the Bible. Would Jesus have supported gay marriage? Probably not, and the recent efforts to redeem homosexuality in a Biblical sense are misguided and kind of embarrassing, John Boswell notwithstanding. Better to see the Bible for what it is--a Bronze Age text which has very specific, outdated, and frankly xenophobic and genocidal things to say about what is "right"--and try to make our own way in the world.

Posted by: Zell | Jul 1, 2014 9:38:48 AM

"the Christian that he was"? There was no christianity until decades after his death, if in fact he existed, and there is no contemporaneous record of his existence. Stick to music Elton or at least read Lataster. No one should use religion to explain, support or oppose being gay. One is what they are and magic doesn't enter the picture.

Posted by: Terry | Jul 1, 2014 9:49:24 AM

Who cares what this fat queen has to say?

Posted by: Petey | Jul 1, 2014 11:17:34 AM

"I cannot see him as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was saying 'this cannot happen.'"

Elton is so clueless. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. He made clear, repeatedly, that the Jewish law still applied, and would continue to apply, sin would be sin until the end of time. His big message wasn't supporting sin, but simply discouraging it with words instead of fists, with the smug satisfaction that his daddy-self would roast the offenders after death, in Hell.

Read the book.

Posted by: Randy | Jul 1, 2014 12:58:34 PM

According to Matthew, Jesus appears to have affirmed a same-sex couple. Read about it here:
http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html

Posted by: SeattleMike | Jul 1, 2014 1:17:39 PM

BS. Jesus exists only in a book. It never existed in history.

Posted by: simon | Jul 1, 2014 1:32:19 PM

"Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian."

Elton's reference to Jesus as a "Christian" did sound a little funny. It's like saying that Jesus committed his life to accepting Jesus.
Still, while he came from a Jewish background, he had radically new and liberal ideas that were a departure from what was believed by mainstream people all around him, so I would find it hard to categorize him religiously as adhering to ANY established religion organized by others.
I see no evidence that he ever said that the "Jewish" law still applied and always should apply. Yes, he said he was not there to abolish the law, but I see that as meaning that he wasn't trying to get anarchy started by getting rid of all sense of law and order.
He taught that loving God and your neighbor was the key to discerning right from wrong, and spoke AGAINST a lot of the laws and rules, both religious and legal, that people were accustomed to thinking they should live by.

Posted by: GregV | Jul 1, 2014 2:21:48 PM

Gregv:
There were no "radically new and liberal ideas" in the Jesus cult. Around that time, there was not just one Christian cult, there were hundreds of them, none of them original. They borrowed heavily from Judaism and other pagan cults. Only after they gained power they rewrote history to let you believe there has only been one Christianity all along, not many Christianities.
It is obvious from Paul's letters that Paul and Peter were bitter opponents with irreconcilable religious differences.

Posted by: simon | Jul 1, 2014 5:04:44 PM

Not just the Jesus cult, every major religion or philosophy says something similar. e.g. Buddhism or Confucianism.

Posted by: simon | Jul 1, 2014 5:10:11 PM

Gregv:
Also this "love thy neighbors" things is not in all the Gospels. David Fitzgerald joked about John's Jesus is a Republican Jesus. no Love thy Neighbor, no Turn the other Cheek. The poor and the suffering barely get a mention from John's Jesus. One may get the impression that Jesus has a split personality from reading the different Gospels.

Posted by: simon | Jul 1, 2014 6:37:50 PM

It's a nice thought, but I don't give two shits if Jesus would approve or not. I'm not out to impress Christians with how Christian-friendly I am. Rather, they need to impress ME with how human-friendly THEY are.